My first fanfic, in a freaking year, people! And it's for Team Fortress 2, no less! I'm still learning about the characters so they might seem OOC at time.

This is set some time after the events of The Naked and the Dead comic. I wanted to address the deal with the devil thing because I have certain theory about it.

Please, leave a comment/review. I need them to live.

These are not the good guys

As she was driving through the little town of Teufort in a truck, Adeline knew this assignment was going to be far different than her previous jobs. To this moment she was sent to deal with people who had done bad things (often very, very bad things), but were, overall, good guys. Sometimes their problem was coming from misunderstanding, old resentments and people being flawed human beings. To this moment she always had something to work with – some good will, some sense of justice, some inclinations of her target having conscience.

But this time Adeline's archenemy chose a different prey. This time he was going after people who some individuals might call sociopaths; people whose jobs required to kill, maim, cheat and betray. Of course, Adeline had read their files – they had their good qualities too and weren't completely devoid of decency or love. Nevertheless, Adeline had a hard job before her for one, very important reason:

One of them sold his soul to the devil and took the souls of others to avoid damnation. But the others didn't know that. They were blissfully unaware what their brother in arms did to them. And that was what Saturninus wanted to use against them.

As she approached their base in a truck, Adeline wondered how she was going to not only ruin Saturninus' plans but also resolve this "deal with the devil" thing. Obviously, she couldn't just leave it like that. As long as the deal was in power, neither one of her targets were safe. But how she was going to do it, she didn't know. She wasn't even sure if she was able to do it.

Finally she got to the base's gate. She took a deep breath, honked twice and waited. After few seconds she heard a gruff voice coming from an intercom on the gate:

"State your objective, civilian!"

Adeline smiled to herself. This had to be the infamous Soldier.

"Mann Co. Delivery!" She said, almost chirping.

"Ah, good. My new rocket launcher finally came." Was Soldier's reply. Right after that he added: "Come on in, kid."

And so she did.

The mercenaries stopped whatever they were doing to greet the delivery girl.

Well, maybe not all of them – Medic had something to work with in the medbay, Pyro was asleep and Spy was on the watch duty. Anyway, once the delivery girl entered the base in her Mann Co. truck and once she came out of her vehicle, she was surrounded by mercenaries eager to find out what she came in with. The girl looked small and fragile. Her round face, with light skin and rosy cheeks brought to mind a porcelain doll, while her green eyes and red locks reminded Demoman of some Irish gal he met once. The girl looked harmless and almost friendly… but the mercs were used to seeing people who looked harmless but were, in fact, very deadly.

Therefore soon their guest became a target of Sniper's jarate.

"Hey!" She exclaimed, looking at her stained uniform. "What's the big idea?!"

"I wanted to make sure that you're not a BLU Spy." Sniper's response was calm and collected.

"This is why you don't have a girlfriend." Scout pointed out.

"I don't need one." Sniper retorted and turned back to their guest. "Anyway, I'm sorry for the inconvenience." He added with the same tone.

The girl sighed with resignation.

"Oh well, I understand."

"Enough pleasanties!" Soldier screamed. "I want my rocket launcher!"

She suddenly gave them a wide smile. There was something in that smile… something not quite natural that made her seem trustworthy and well-meaning.

"Of course, gentlemen. Follow me." She said, then went to the back of her truck and opened its heavy doors with relative ease. With an inviting gesture she added: "Suit yourself."

Soldier, Scout, Sniper, Engineer and Demoman started going into the truck and examine the crates inside. They were pretty enthusiastic about what they will find inside. Only Heavy – who was silent this whole time – was standing aside and observing the delivery girl suspiciously.

"I've never seen you here." He told her. She turned to him and smiled again.

"Yes, well. It's my second day at Mann Co." She stopped smiling and gave another sigh. "Look, I get it: it's a war zone up here and you are used to treachery. But I assure you that I want to help you."

Heavy looked at her again. He couldn't shake the feeling that there was something odd about her; something he wasn't sure he liked. A moment later he realized that she was looking at him too, and she seemed to be hesitant, before she regain her composure and finally spoke:

"In fact, I have an additional reason to be here. Can I trust you about it?"

He blinked with surprise, before he started to be suspicious again.

"I don't know. It depends on what is that reason."

She gave a small laugh and replied:

"Fair enough. Well, I'm kind of happy you've asked." She cleared her throat and gazed at him with seriousness. "I'm here to protect you."

Heavy's eyebrows raised again and a few seconds later he gave a hearty laugh, bringing attention of others to himself, before they just shrugged his behavior on Heavy being Heavy and came back to looking at their new equipment.

"Please, this is important." The delivery girl whispered to him.

Heavy calmed himself a bit after about thirty seconds and looked at the girl.

"You want to protect me?" He said finally.

"I know how it sounds." She began. "And I know that you all faced multiple unimaginable foes in your lives: from enemy mercenaries to robots, wizards and ghosts." She moved closer to him and murmured: "But this foe can't be killed by conventional weapons. To be fair, he can't be killed by unconventional ones too."

"Maybe he was never hit hard enough." Heavy pointed out and smirked. "And with proper bullets."

The girl gave soft sign of resignation but quickly regained her composure.

"Come on, let's talk someplace else. I need to rest and eat lunch anyway. May as well, tell you everything somewhere private."

"You probably will need to change too." Heavy prompted.

"Yes, well, that too."

The girl went to her truck, took some kind of large bag from the passenger seat and came back to Heavy who started to lead the way.

"One more thing," He began, not even looking at his guest. "remember: we are all trained assassins. So no funny business. Understood?"

"Oh, understood perfectly." She said and gave him another friendly smile. "My name is Adeline, by the way."

"Mikhail." He replied, not even looking at her. "But you must call me Heavy."

"Yessir!" She saluted jokingly.

They entered the main building and went to the locker room. Heavy turned his back to not look at Adeline changing her clothes. Nevertheless, he decided to talk with her.

"So who are you exactly? Some kind of secret operative?"

"You can say that."

"That's vague. And not very reassuring."

"You're right. I'm sorry. Look, what I'm going to say next might sound crazy but I hope you will believe me, because this is important. Oh, and you can turn away now. I'm changed already."

Heavy did just that. Adeline was wearing red t-shirt and long blue skirt. She sat on the bench and tapped the seat next to her. Heavy took a seat, not moving his gaze from the girl. He still tried to put his finger on what was wrong with her.

"I will decide for myself if I want to believe you." He said finally. "Now, talk."

Adeline put her hands on her laps and looked at her interlocutor.

"The guy I was talking about earlier… the one that can't be killed by normal weapons… it just so happens that he's a demon. Moreover, he's the kind of demon that feeds on betrayal, therefore he tries to make friends and family turn on each other."

"Well then," Heavy began. "a little betrayal now and then is normal here. We never turn on each other completely."

"Yes, I am aware of that. But that's not all." Adeline continued. "He also feeds on pain and resentments. He uses them to torment his prey, to make his victims weak and sustainable to manipulation. Generally he targets one particular person that did something really bad and he makes their closed ones hate them. Because you see, Heavy, one little betrayal isn't enough to satisfy his appetite. He needs a full banquet of hate, anger, guilt and trauma. That's how Saturninus operates. That's what he wants and sooner or later he will start manipulating you all to turn on your brother in arms."

Probably Heavy wouldn't believe her if it wasn't for the fact that he had seen many weird things in his life. In fact, he fought with few demons that Merasmus sent their way couple of times. The entity that feeds off of people's resentments and humans turning on each other also seemed to be plausible, in some weird, bizarre way. The question was whenever Adeline was telling the truth or did she have some kind of hidden agenda to use mercenaries to her advantage.

Heavy looked at her and, once again, felt as if she meant him no harm and could be trusted. He felt like his initial disdain for her was weakening, but he wasn't entirely convinced yet.

"I know what you think and it's good you don't believe me easily." She gave him another soft smile. "Perhaps you need a proof."

She stood up, took few steps away from him and suddenly Heavy realized she was holding a sword – a long sword with exceptionally shiny blade and metal handle. Suddenly the blade was covered in bright yellow flames, in of its own, without any movement from Adeline. Heavy came closer to inspect the blazing weapon. He couldn't smell gasoline or any other flammable substance (and when one works with Pyro, they get to know few smells like that), moreover – when he brought hand closer to the flame, it didn't burn him. For some reason when he was near it, it brought to his mind a pleasant sensation of his family home; as well as camaraderie he shared with these men he was working with.

And then he experienced epiphany. He knew now what exactly was so odd about Adeline – she wasn't human. She was an angel… or something similar to angel. She came here to help and she was telling the truth.

Heavy moved away from her, still astounded by his realization.

"This Saturninus guy… who is he going to target, specifically?" He asked a moment later. "Soldier? Spy? Me?"

Adeline smiled to his reaction and the flaming sword in her hands disappeared. Then she saddened before giving a reply:

"He's after Medic."

Heavy felt something drop inside of him. A moment later he sat back on the bench, still looking at Adeline.

"Doctor?"

"Yes." Adeline nodded. "From all of the Teufort Nine mercenaries, Saturninus decided to attack doctor."

A memory flashed before Heavy's eyes. The memory of the other, older Heavy shooting Medic three times. First there was a cold sensation of horror and helplessness as Heavy observed doctor dying on the ground. Then there was a burning anger; a rage that was calling him to hit the other Heavy with all his might to avenge his friend, to make the bastard pay, to kill this son of a bitch for taking doctor away. And then there was this lingering feeling of loss; of the sadness that Medic is dead. This death wasn't permanent, sure, but it didn't mean that Heavy's grief never happened. He didn't want to see dead doctor again.

Heavy clenched his fists with determination and stood up.

"He needs to go through me first." He punched his hand for emphasis.

"That's the spirit! I knew it was a good idea to tell you about it!" Adeline's face beamed with enthusiasm, but then the girl got serious. "Now, I probably should talk with Medic. There something I need to ask him."

"What exactly?" Heavy asked.

"Pardon, my friend, but this is something he probably would like to share of his own volition. I also would rather prefer for him to tell you and others about it, than if it was revealed to you by the third party."

Heavy was still curious about it, but to some extend he knew that Adeline had a point. After all, he also had his secrets and he revealed them to his friends when he felt they needed to know.

"I will lead you to him." He finally offered.

"You are most kind, sir." Adeline smiled to him again and they left the locker room.

BTW - if you're worried about Adeline falling for one of the mercs and being Mary Sue, don't worry - usually when I write my OCs in the fic, I'm trying to make them more of supporting characters - someone who helps the canon characters with certain things but mostly stays on the sidelines.

And this story is about Medic, his relationship with the mercs and what he did in The Naked and The Dead.